We occassionally have external developers create DNN modules for us.  We usually require "must keep to DNN standards" in our requirements - although we never define these.

Do anyone have a short statement of key DNN standards (e.g. using DNN controls) that should be followed?

What about the things that aren't covered in the DNN Module Developer's Guide?  I'm relatively new to DotNetNuke, but I've been professionally developing software for almost 15 years, and have been dinking around the Web just slightly longer than that.  I know that there's been discussion over accessibility of modules/pages from DNN, and part of that would seem to be related to there being no "DNN standard" HTML design.

As a case in point, I'm setting up a site for a dog-sport club I'm in, and I'm just picky enough to want to fully customize the look of the site... but I *don't* want to have to one-off the software for all the modules to do so.  After all, when a new release of a module comes out, I'll probably want to upgrade to it, and having my own version of the module makes that much more difficult.  Unfortunately, there are a fair number of modules that have hard-coded styles in their markup, or don't use CSS classes uniquely (or use their own instead of a common one, or use a common one in an uncommon way...), or use redundant IDs.  All of this makes it very hard to get the site to look the way I want.  For the most part, I'm a happy camper... DNN has made setting up the site a breeze, and the user/role provisioning functionality is fantastic.

The question remains, however: is there a standard recommendation for markup, class naming, etc. for module developers?  Should there be one?  If so, what should it entail?  (I know this opens a can of worms as well... the idea of changing 20-odd modules markup and naming conventions would probably mean breaking a lot of existing workarounds/hacks/re-writes, and that's going to be a big concern as well.

(If this discussion has been had already, I apologize... I've looked for one like it, but haven't found it anywhere in the forums.)

Mitchel, thanks for the reference to Snapsis PageBlaster, I might end up going that route for expediency.  It does irk me a bit (in principle) that I might have to pay $50 to get an otherwise free system to do what I want.  (Yes, I know, I'm still paying way less than a commerical system... again, it's the principle of the thing.  Or, I could put in more effort and change the code if I really wanted to keep it "free".)

Back on the standards topic, though, it's exactly the "Normal"/"SubHead"/"NormalRed" that I haven't seen documented.  Yes, many of the modules seem to use these classes (to varying degrees of consistency), but is this explicitly documented anywhere?  I'm mainly asking this in the context of the standard DNN-provided modules.  3rd party module developers might be suggested to follow the guidelines, but DNN modules really ought to tow the offical line.

Even more than this, I'm curious to know if things like "Normal" have really been "designed", or have just evolved over time.  It may well be that styles and HTML have simply been grafted on as needed, and there hasn't really been a pass to make coherent sense of it all.  (Or maybe there has been, and there's just still more to do.)  Is this the right place to discuss this?  If not, where should I go, and who should I talk to?  I've had lots of ideas about potential clean-up, but (a) I'm very new here and to DNN, and (b) I know that I don't know much DNN history and background and process.  Mitchel, I appreciate your quick response; I look forward to anyone else's feedback as well.

From my perspective, you should shouldn't have to explicitly state that something is "normal"... that's just the default.  It's when things depart from "normal" that you need to specify the class.